Resumo de The Abolitionist Legacy

TheAbolitionist Legacy reveals a world in which post-civil war African-Americans in the Southern US had helpfrom many Northern missionaries who started schools for themas well as from Northern churches who supported these missionaries.According toMcPherson, abolitionists? views changed from support for Reconstruction, togradual acceptance of its failure and defeat in 1871, to hopeful faith ineducation of the Negro rather than in legislation for equality?much like theview of Booker T. Washington, only a few years before his time (whose viewswere not original, rather he grew up with them). Many abolitionists thought that if the Negro could ?pullthemselves up by their own bootstraps? they could then prove their worth andintelligence and would be accepted by Southern whites. Blacks were widely thought to be unfit forthe political responsibility that had been endowed to them; ?The remedy was time and education, which had already brought considerable progress?(McPherson, 113). So how can the Negro attain a goodeducation in a discriminatory, segregated society in the 1870?s to 90?s According to McPherson? The simple answer: Christians. Many missionaries flocked to the South toteach Negro children via the dollar of Northern Christians andabolitionists. Many missionaries feltthey owed a debt to the former slaves because ??we tore them from their nativeland, tortured them on the middle passage, compelled them to unrequited toiland to shameful cruelties?and denied them knowledge and the written word ofGod?? (McPherson, quoting Thomas Pearne, p. 163). But this education did not come without its hardships. Abolitionists and missionaries, according toMcPherson, struggled with providing education while trying not to exude apaternalistic attitude. Over-crowdedschools, heavy strain on over-worked teachers, and arson were also majorproblems to abolitionists.Ultimately, the biggest problem wasthe unchanging racist attitudes of many Southerners: Attitudes which did notchange even after the Negro received this education. Education basically failed to convince Southerners to considerthat the Negro might be equal to them.It seemed as if this education made the situation worse. In the 1890?s, Negroes were being held downmore than ever before with the advent of Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, andliteracy tests. Blacks even hadeducated doctors, lawyers, and teachers which whites failed to recognize. Much of this, argues McPherson, was theresult simply of ignorance. Whites did notknow about these black professionals because they had never met them. Segregation went deeper that drinkingfountains and bathrooms. ?A black manlike du Bois was far better known in the North than in the South? (McPherson315).Among abolitionists, disagreement between gradualismand militancy soon followed.Gradualists, like Washington, kept to the education and timetheory. Militants like Du Bois wantedaction. People like Du Bois saw thatthis education theory had failed, they no longer trusted legislation to makeany changes, and they wanted to take action for themselves. People of this radical group led by Du Bois,along with many Neo-abolitionists (such as Oswald Garrison Villard and WilliamE. Walling), eventually formed the NAACP.

Resumos Relacionados